I know the Internet is changing rapidly and is going more and more toward the interaction of audio and video. Heck I wouldn’t be surprised if one day over 50% of our content was supplied via video and/or audio.

You would think I would be all over this, since I’ve always been ahead of the curve when it comes to all things online, and since I majored in Communications (Radio/TV/Film in college). I was actually “Online” in 1989, on Prodigy, when you connected via a 5 1/2 inch floppy disk. I did broadcasting way back in High School, as mine was the first in N.J. to produce a daily newscast, which was broadcast to the whole school. That was like 1985, for God’s sake. I don’t think I’m a particularly good broadcaster, but I’m solid enough, and certainly have more skills than a lot people doing it right now in the fantasy industry.

The point is, I’m long overdue in terms of getting some video stuff and a Podcast on the site – and I intend to do both this year. My problem, as always, is time. I simply don’t have enough of it. But hopefully things are going to be getting better. We’re definitely going to be adding another full-timer to the staff this year; it’s just a question of who that person is at this point. That will definitely help save me some time (and make the site a lot better) and give me more of it to devote to these interactive endeavors.

In some ways, it’s ironic that I haven’t done any audio or video, since I’m one of the more active people in the industry in terms of appearing on TV and Radio. I suppose since I do a weekly TV and Radio show (Comcast Sportsnet and Sirius Radio respectively) I haven’t felt a strong enough need to get my face and voice out there.Well that’s changed this year, and I definitely feel a pressing need to do some audio and video. First on the audio, I’m going to be working these next few weeks on doing a Podcast with Adam Caplan of footballinjuries.com, who I co-host the Sirius show with. I’m thinking it will be short, since we’re going to put it up for free and we don’t want to “give away the farm.” It’ll probably be about 20-30 minutes and maybe just once a week, but that’s a start. Hopefully I’ll have details on that sometime in early July.

Since it seems to be more complicated, I’m starting with the video first. In just two days of working on this, I’ve been able to come up with something that is at least presentable. Since I have no time, I actually enlisted the help of my 14-year old son, whose not doing much else this summer other than playing baseball.

To tell you the truth, I didn’t do anything, other than the actual broadcast. I came up with the simple idea of calling my video spots “The Fantasy Guru Minute.” I like the quick-hitting stuff, and if this little thing takes off, then I can envision myself doing a lot of these with the help of my son, as long as I don’t have to ground him and banish him to his room. My plan is to cover one topic each day, and to periodically answer viewer mail on the thing.

Like I said, I’m still trying to figure out the best way to put this stuff on our actual site, and I certainly don’t want to put something up there that’s going to fry our servers, so I have to be careful. But the good news is for now, that I can put these on YouTube and simply supply a link to the video each day. That’s certainly good enough for now, but I definitely want to have this stuff actually on our site.

But at least we have the ability to produce this thing, and that’s again thanks to my new intern, my kid. He does the camera, the video editing, he created the graphics, and he even came up with and performed the little jam in the opening (he did the guitar and drums). There is no need to pay any royalties; that is original music. He did all this in about 4 hours, and I was impressed. I gotta say this is a pretty decent first attempt, considering the time and money invested (minimal).

6 Responses

John Hansen! Glad to see you adopt video streaming media. Since you’re running WordPress for your blog, instead of linking to the videos, you can easily embed] the video into your blog posts. Just cut and paste the embed code provided by Youtube on your video’s page. Be sure to cut and paste it in using ‘html’ mode in wordpress.

Feel free to send me and email if you would like some help or need more information. Cheers!

Nice job, John. The only issue I have is with the shameless placement of that Vikes helmet. You’re supposed to be impartial, my man! You might want to try a Tim O’Malley puppet to jazz things up a bit. Sample exchange?

John: “Say, Tim puppet. Who is your IDP ROTY for the upcoming season?”

Nice video John, you remind me of a younger John “The Professor” Clayton The vikings helmet in the background also made me suspicious of who the “real” Kanemochi might be. Maybe the next Fantasy minute will touch on the 2007 potential for Mwelde Moore??

Hey John – Nice job. Video is a great extra. Since my son is 2, would you ask your son a question for me? I need an easy to use program that will allow me to edit dvds. I want to pull short clips off my West Wing dvds and show them to my class. Thanks. P

The visual medium is powerful, no doubt about it. You did a heck of a job selling Cutler in under two minutes … it’s going to take your readers / listeners / viewers a little time to adjust – because that was one heck of a sales pitch. I like the printed word because I can sit back and chew on it for awhile and then determine in my own mind whether I agree with you or not, and go from there. I can probably still do the same off of the video content but man – it can really be immediately persuasive.

I too noticed the Viking helmet … and after the initial shock of seeing that thing protruding from the semi-darkness had passed, I have come to realize and conclude that I must accept you for who you are, warts and all. :o> I jest of course … sort of .. we here in the NFC North really do love our purple neighbors to the west … really, we do . . . sort of.

Also, interesting to see you have subscribers who are apparently vested in other publications.

Yeah, I got that helmet for free, no way I would ever pay for that. It won’t be there for long. I wish I had it still, but I wrote a great essay that was published on ESPN.com about how I had an epiphany walking out of Giant stadium after their 41-0 NFL title game loss on how being a Viking fan has made me such a fantasy nut. Point is, I’m “stuck” being a Viking fan, lord knows I don’t want to be.

My kid used the adobe premiere program ($100) and he was able to figure that out pretty quickly.

A young John Clayton? I’ve met John several times and he’s a really nice guy, but he makes me look like a young Robert Redford.